The Awakening
by Linndechir
Summary: “What’s in it for me?“ - “What you love most: life.“ --- Eric wakes up for the first time after Godric bit him. -Godric/Eric slash-


Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the places in this story belong to me; and I don't make any money with this.

A/N: My first True Blood fic, written very quickly and unfortunately not beta read. But I simply couldn't resist writing some Godric/Eric, my fandom OTP. ^^ Warning for slash and lots of blood.

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**The Awakening**

Darkness enveloped him, earth filled his mouth and nose when he tried to gasp for air, the soil seemed to crush him under its weight. Breathe, he needed to breathe.

He struggled, only half noticing that he felt no pain, but suddenly very aware of the thin body pressed against him, of slender arms wrapped around him in an embrace similar to those of his men in the coldest nights. But it brought no warmth, no feeling of safety. He needed to get out.

He was too confused to realise that he escaped the earth too easily. Only a few seconds passed before he stood firmly on the ground under the black, starred sky.

Eric breathed in the cold night air, but to his surprise it brought no relief. It was as if his body hadn't missed the air at all. Instead he took in a myriad of scents, odours that vaguely resembled those he had known until now - but only as vaguely as the touch of a youth's own hand resembled what he felt when he first lay with a woman.

He turned to look around and found himself face to face with the boy from last night, dried blood on his smiling lips. Eric could see his face as clearly in the dark as he would have on a bright day.

"You are already so strong, my child," the boy whispered appreciatively, and his voice burnt like fire in Eric's over-sensitive ears. He could hear everything, the wind in the treetops, the splashing water in a nearby stream, even the animals creeping through the wood. It was as overwhelming as a thunderstorm, and the soft, youthful voice was the steadying arm that kept him from being swept away.

But he wasn't frightened. He knew it was freezing cold, he knew he was soaked and dirty, he knew he had been wounded and dying, and yet he had never felt so strong, so healthy in his whole life.

The boy came towards him, and Eric didn't protest when he embraced him. He recognised in confusion that it was the same body that had held him moments before, in the ground. Slender, lightly muscled, delicate were it not for the hidden strength in every movement.

"My child," the boy whispered again, running his fingertips over Eric's blood-smeared cheek. "I have waited for you for decades, centuries. Death has been lonely; it took him so long to find his companion."

"I thought you were a dream," Eric finally managed to say, his eyes wide with wonder. The world around him didn't feel unreal in its bright colours and scents, but more real than it had ever been. He had never seen so clearly before; he had never felt as strongly as he did now, in this cold, possessive embrace. "But you really have given me life."

"True life." Soft lips against Eric's neck, reminding him of the bite last night, of the ecstatic feeling when the boy had drunk from him, then given him his blood. Eric remembered how he had pressed his mouth against the smooth neck, his weak body held by unexpectedly strong arms. How his revulsion had soon been replaced by greed and lust as he sucked in more and more of the boy's cool blood.

Hunger surged up in him, stronger than what he had ever felt after days of starvation in harsh winters. Suddenly the confusing impressions that his sharpened senses picked up faded away, leaving only one scent in his nostrils.

He tore himself out of the boy's embrace and started to run, unaware of how the woods soared past him, unaware that he reached a small camp near the stream, unaware that the three men sitting around the fire were from his own tribe, lost and wounded just like he had been, unaware of anything except the sweet warmth that overflowed him when he sank his fangs into their necks, filling him with ecstatic bliss that seemed to tear him apart.

He stumbled backwards after the third man had fallen to the ground, as if his mind had yet to gain control of the new strength in his body. He couldn't see anything but glorious, splashing red, and when his sight finally cleared he was looking into the laughing eyes of the boy.

_Beautiful_, he mouthed, and the almost soundless word still reached Eric's ears. In less than the blink of an eye the boy was in his arms, their lips pressed together, the boy's tongue greedily tasting the blood in Eric's mouth.

There was no hesitation in that kiss, no restraint. No sign of the feigned coyness of the women Eric had known, nor of the awkward secrecy of the few encounters he had had with men. Nothing but lust and desire, both for the other's body and for the warm blood in their mouths.

Eric held the boy so tight that his arms would have crushed the life out of a normal human. But the boy was no human, and Eric began to understand that he wasn't either, not anymore. What he felt now couldn't be life.

Life had never been this good.


End file.
